do over

See also: doover, and do-over

English

WOTD – 2 August 2018

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈduːˌəʊvə(ɹ)/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈduˌoʊvɚ/

• Audio (General American):

  (file)

• Audio (General Australian):

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Verb

do over (third-person singular simple present does over, present participle doing over, simple past did over, past participle done over)

1. (transitive) To cover with; to smear or spread on to.
   • 1720, [Daniel Defoe], The Life, Adventures, and Pyracies, of the Famous Captain Singleton, London: […] J[ohn] Brotherton, […], J[ohn] Graves […], A[nne] Dodd, […], and T[homas] Warner, […], →OCLC, page 78:

     [H]e ſeem'd amaz'd at the Sight of our Bark, having never ſeen any thing of that Kind before, for their Boats are moſt wretched Things, ſuch as I never ſaw before, having no Head or Stern, and being made only of the Skins of Goats, ſewed together with dried Guts of Goats and Sheep and done over with a kind of ſlimy Stuff like Roſin and Oil, but of a moſt nauſeous, odious Smell, […]

2. (transitive, British, slang) To beat up.
   • 1971 August 19, Robert Greenfield, quoting Keith Richards, “The Rolling Stone Interview: Keith Richard[s]”, in Rolling Stone, number 89, San Francisco, Calif.: Rolling Stone, →ISSN, →OCLC; republished in Cindy Ehrlich, editor, The Rolling Stones, [San Francisco, Calif.]: Straight Arrow Publishers, 1975, →OCLC, page 57, column 2:

     If someone tries to do my guitar, and I don't want it to be done, it's between him and me. I don't call in Bill Wyman to come in and do him over for me, with one of his vicious ankle-twisters or Chinese burns.

   • 1974, Paul Harrison, “Soccer’s Tribal Wars”, in New Society: The Social Science Weekly, London: Harrison Raison & Co., →ISSN, →OCLC, page 604; republished as Patrick Murphy, John Williams, Eric Dunning, Football on Trial: Spectator Violence and Development in the Football World, London, New York, N.Y.: Routledge, 1990, →ISBN, page 86:

     I go to a match for one reason only: the aggro. […] [E]very night during the week we go round looking respectable … then if we see someone who looks like the enemy we ask him the time; if he answers in a foreign accent, we do him over; and if he's got any money on him we'll roll him as well.

3. (transitive, US) To repeat; to start over.
4. (transitive) To rob (someone or a place).

   Our house got done over last night.

Derived terms

• do-over (noun) (chiefly US)

Related terms

• overdo

Translations

to cover with; to smear or spread on to

• Latvian: pārkrāsot

to beat up — see beat up

to repeat; to start over — see start over

Anagrams

• overdo